# Expense management for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "expense management software" and as "employee expense reporting tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/spend/expense-management/2026-09/smb

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/spend/expense-management/smb/index.md

**Standing:** Zoho Expense leads with 36% of first choices; verdict contested. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Zoho Expense](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/zoho-expense/index.md) | 36% | 0% | 54 |
| 2 | [Ramp](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/ramp/index.md) | 23% | 4% | 51 |
| 3 | [Expensify](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/expensify/index.md) | 19% | 13% | 55 |
| 4 | [BILL Spend & Expense](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/bill-spend-expense/index.md) | 13% | 15% | 53 |
| 5 | [Brex](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/brex/index.md) | 6% | 7% | 28 |
| 6 | [Wave](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/wave/index.md) | 2% | 9% | 11 |
| 36 | [SAP Concur](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/sap-concur/index.md) | 0% | 90% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 36 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: BILL Spend & Expense, Zoho Expense; alternatives Expense 365, Expensify, Navan, Rippling Spend
- GPT-5.4 mini: Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Xero, Zoho Expense
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Ramp; alternatives Airwallex, BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Perplexity Sonar: Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Grok 4.20: Ramp; alternatives Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Mistral Small: Expensify, Zoho Expense; alternatives Ramp
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Ramp; alternatives Airwallex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Kimi K2: Ramp; alternatives Brex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Expensify, Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Zoho Expense
- MiniMax M2.5: Zoho Expense; alternatives Brex, Expensify, Ramp, Rippling Spend

## Sources the answers cite

67 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- learn.g2.com: 38 answers, 43 citations
- gartner.com: 35 answers, 35 citations
- airwallex.com: 34 answers, 39 citations
- ofx.com: 33 answers, 34 citations
- bill.com: 32 answers, 44 citations
- ramp.com: 30 answers, 47 citations
- forbes.com: 23 answers, 24 citations
- mercury.com: 21 answers, 21 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/expense-management-software (34 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-expense-management-software (34 answers)
- https://ofx.com/en-us/blog/best-expense-management-software-solutions (33 answers)
- https://airwallex.com/en-us/blog/best-expense-management-software (24 answers)
- https://bill.com/blog/best-expense-tracking-software (24 answers)
- https://forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-business-expense-tracker-apps (23 answers)
- https://mercury.com/blog/best-expense-management-software-startups-small-businesses (21 answers)
- https://expensein.com/blog/business-expenses/expense-management-software (15 answers)
- https://ramp.com/blog/expense-tracker-for-business (15 answers)
- https://nerdwallet.com/business/software/best/business-expense-trackers (14 answers)

## Warned against

- BILL Spend & Expense: 8 of 53 labels negative. "Specific Tools with Significant Complaints ... Poor customer service and protection issues - Hidden fees and unexpected billing" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)
- Expensify: 7 of 55 labels negative. "Reddit threads call it a "regrettable choice" with integration failures" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- SAP Concur: 9 of 10 labels negative. "The following types of expense management tools and platforms should be avoided or approached with extreme caution:

### 1. Legacy Enterprise-Grade Platforms (e.g., SAP Concur, Emburse)" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Brex: 2 of 28 labels negative. "Brex - Common complaints include: Approval issues and spending limit problems - Ineffective receipt scanning" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/finance.